


Years of Silence

by Flannigan



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied CasFin, In which Finas is a grey warden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 23:38:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13775040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flannigan/pseuds/Flannigan
Summary: Finas travels with his Captain and fellow Grey Wardens, fighting darkspawn where they find them. Once upon a time he had a family, and then later Casimiro. Now he only had his Order and resentment.





	Years of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Promptfill. I was heavily inspired by Casimania's fantastic Dragon Age AU and I'm in love with it.
> 
> Send me prompts at it-s-blue-ink.tumblr.com

“What are you going to do once we’re done?” The Grey Warden captain asked one of the recruits around the fire. Finas bit into some hard bread with a glare.

“Fight more darkspawn?” the recruit hesitated, used to trick questions and right and wrong answers. They gripped the handle of their blade like a child clutching at comfort.

“And after that?” the captain pressed on.

“Our service is until death,” Finas interrupted under his breath, bitter and resigned. “There is no after.” The small camp was quiet enough that no one failed to hear it. He feigned ignorance of the looks sent his way, focused on finding any taste in his food.

“Don’t mind him. He’s the spirit of a thundercloud manifest human form,” another of his seniors said in a cheerful, albeit strained tone, adding more fuel to the fire.

If Casimiro was still with him, he’d know what to say to raise his spirits, give him hope there would be an “after”. Finas leaned back against the rock at his back and cupped his hands to his mouth and breathed on his frozen fingers. The hunter whose camp they stumbled upon in the night caught his eye and offered him a sympathetic look, and then a bottle. Finas accepted the latter.

It was sweet and burned in his throat on the way down.

*****

The darkspawn were slain. They’d found the hole they crawled out of and put them to the blade. Now they pursued them deeper into the tunnels.

If they kept walking they’d make it to the Deep Roads, Finas thought as he followed his captain. Where darkspawn came from, where Grey Wardens end up.

One day he, all of them, would keep walking, heeding a call unable to resist it. That was the truth, and as the mere human he was he refused to face it because it was ugly.

Casimiro promised to follow him there. Slay darkspawn together, die together. All very romantic and fit for songs. Casimiro had also promised to find a remedy for the Calling.

Hadn’t heard from him in years.

He told himself the idiot had finally found his wits and realized Finas was ill-suited for his loyalty and affection, and left him to his inevitable end. He might’ve died looking for the remedy, Finas tought, stepping over human skeletons. The thought stabbed in his chest.

One of the recruits had collected a vial of darkspawn blood. Finas hurried his pace, tempted to take it away from them.

He was in the depths of grieving the loss of his wife to darkspawn when he’d performed the Joining. It had felt like the right thing. But he didn’t get his wife back, and now Casimiro was also gone.

It _was_ still the right thing, Finas told himself, as he did every day.

It didn’t feel like it any longer.

*****

Finas woke with a start, eyes snapped open. His heart raced, though he couldn’t remember the nightmare that caused him to wake up covered in sweat, clammy and shaking. Never did. He pressed the heels of his palms over his eyes and breathed deep.

Outside the tent the others talked over the crackling fire. Someone played some kind of instrument.

Skin prickling, Finas threw over the blankets and sat up, forgetting to breathe. The music, he couldn’t place it. It didn’t come from inside the camp, nor did it come from outside. It was… It simply was.

Finas swallowed, mouth dry. In ten to thirty years, it was said. You’d hear it. Feel it. He’d been a warden well over a decade now, he should’ve expected the Calling to emerge. He covered his ears, but it made more room for the music, the scratches chipping at the edge of his hearing.

Slowly he crawled out of the tent, found a spot by the fire, cupped his hands over his mouth and breathed on his fingers.

No one adressed him. For a while he listened to them talk. The captain had asked another new recruit what they’d do “after”. She gave Finas a pointed look, daring him to interrupt again. He averted his eyes.

“So,” she said once the recruit was done, “what’s your plan once this is over?” She threw a crust of hard bread at Finas. “I’m talking to you, sunshine.”

Finas thought of the Deep Roads. He was going to die there with only his blade, shield and what lacking magic power he had as company. His gut froze, it was like the fire wasn’t there.

He shared a look with the captain. She must know there was nothing but death for any of them, once you taint yourself with their blood. But maybe not this moment, her insistent look seemed to say. Right now, there is an “after”.

He was tired, and gave in to her question.

He pictured Casimiro’s face, remembered the shape of his hands, his whispered nothings.

“I’m going to track down a close friend,” Finas said, strained at each syllable, wanting to believe it, “and we’ll travel together to my daughter’s Circle. …She looks like her mother.” He imagined she did. She was grown now and wouldn’t know his face.

“That sounds nice,” the captain said, holding out a bottle. Finas took it.

“It does.”


End file.
